One of the great things about living in India is the opportunity to learn a new language. In India you have over 14 different languages to choose from, but it makes sense to learn the local one 😀

I’m living in the state of Tamil Nadu, in the main city called Chennai (it used to be called Madras before they decided to get rid of the connection with their colonial past). The city is fast filling up with British expats like myself and international students from organisations like AISEC.

One of my main goals while living out here is to learn the local Tamil language.  However, the interesting thing is, that as I’m learning Tamil, I’m studying English more and more.

For example, until recently I didn’t even know what the origins of the English language were. A quick bit of research and I’m able to give you a condensed history of the English language…

English is based on the Germanic language brought to the UK by the Saxons of what is now North-West Germany. However, even this Germanic language is a sub-category of the Indo-European language which can be traced to Northern India. When the Normans invaded the country in 1066, Old French was the language of the law, courts and administration. Even when it was changed to English, many words and phrases remained.

In the 16th and 17th century, many words were borrowed from Latin. Modern English that is spoken today can be traced back to the Elizabethan era.

There is a very interesting diagram showing the classification and evolution of languages here: History of Language Diagram

Where English is quite a modern language, Tamil is credited as being one of the oldest languages, that is still widely spoken, in the world, with a heritage that can be dated back over 2,200 years – this makes it one hell of a difficult language to learn! Take the letter ‘L’. There are three ways of pronouncing it!

Back to English.

Even though many educated people in Chennai can speak English (well, I like to call it Indo-English because the sentence structures and word usage are different), I’m able to understand them quite well, but often they are unable to understand me.

This is because I would use slang, abbreviate (don’t, do not) words, and more significantly use idioms, metaphors and similies when I’m speaking.

Time and again I would have to go back and explain a slang word or saying, and in the true Indian fashion of wanting to learn and understand, they would ask why we use such words, what the orgins are etc. Since we don’t pay much attention to what we’re saying in the UK, we never really get a chance to study our own language or the origins of words and sayings.

Take this saying:

Straight from the horses mouth

A bit of research tells you that the origin of this saying comes from horse racing and the only way to accurately tell the age of a horse is to look at it’s teeth and mouth. Hence, “this horse is 3 years old, I got it from the horses mouth” ie. the information came direct from the source.

Other sayings and slang that I’ve been asked to explain include…

1. Raining cats and dogs
2. Come down on you like a ton of bricks
3. Went down like a lead balloon
4. Stuck between a rock and a hard place
5. Chavs
6. If you can’t beat em, join em
7. Hard as nails
8. Sweet FA
9. Scot free
10. Cushty
11. This time next year…
12. Bent as a nine bob note
13. Cool beans

And many more sayings besides. There are also some sayings that don’t seem to have any origin, they are either a play on words which have different meanings or slang meanings, it can confuse the hell out of my Indian friends…

1. Let’s make like a tree, and leave
2. Let’s make like a banana, and split
3. Let’s make like a donkey’s d***, and hit the road

There are also occasions where I have to give someone a better way of saying something. For example, on our help desk, a phrase that was often used was:

• Please be in patience

I explained to them that although any English speaking person would understand exactly what they meant, the accepted way of politely asking someone to wait would be:

• Please be patient

This was taken with a certain amount of skeptism, because “everyone knows that patient means someone who’s undergoing healthcare, like a Doctors Patient.

I think that’s long enough for my musings on the English language. It’s an interesting subject for me and it’s a shame we don’t learn more about the history of our own language in school history lessons.

For further reading on the history of English, Tamil and words and phrases in English, check these sources:

• http://www.phrases.org.uk
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language

Just had a little argument about the best way to make coffee today. I was asked if I want a coffee, to which I replied, “sure, I’ll boil the water”. This was met with a blank expression along the lines of “why the hell do you want to boil the water?!”…Err, to make coffee?

Well, as it turns out, here in India, we make coffee in the opposite way to the UK (well, at least in the opposite way to the way I make coffee!). They boil the milk first, and then add small amounts of water to taste.

Naturally an argument ensued about which is the best way to make coffee. Frankly I think we’re going to have to do some double-blind tests to put it to rest 😀

Just a little fun, no offense meant from this list 🙂 It’s just some of my observations from the last few months of living in Chennai.

1. A Honda or Skoda is considered a premium luxury brand
2. The tuk-tuk driver demands Rs 150 for a trip that you know should cost Rs 70. But you end up taking anyway because you just spent the last ten minutes trying to explain where you want to go to and haven’t the energy to do it all over again
3. Over-taking on a blind bend is considered a skill rather than reckless driving
4. They drive a bus through a gap in the traffic you wouldn’t even take a bike through
5. The correct lane to be in for turning left or right is where ever your car is at the time
6. It is the job of people behind you to get out of the way when reversing and you absolutely should not look out the back window when going backwards (for this reason every vehicle is fitted with some tacky tune that plays whenever it reverses :D)
7. Traffic rules are merely polite suggestions
8. Every other question is about food
9. You’ve put on 10kg of weight since coming out to India and fitting comfortably in to your size 34″ waist jeans is but a distant memory, and someone remarks that you are looking too lean
10. You are laughed at because the girl you happen to think is pretty and attractive is considered to not be fat enough
11. Every successful film is about finding true love and following your heart, but in real life ‘love’ is not enough to justify a marriage
12. Arranged marriages actually start to make some sense as the whole boy meets girl thing is taken care of for you and you can get on with the rest of your life (doesn’t mean you agree with it though!)
13. You can accurately guess the plot of every Indian movie that’s ever been, currently popular and will ever be made simply by stating “boy meets girl and there’s a wedding at the end”
14. You look out the window and it’s day time, you look out the same window five minutes later and it’s pitch black
15. You can make artistic pictures by joining up dot-to-dot style all your mosquito bites
16. Hanging on to the outside of a bus doing 30 MPH mere inches from the massive tyres with one hand and chatting on your cell-phone with the other is considered an acceptable form of commuting to and from work
17. Seat belts are for weenies
18. Motor-cycle helmets are for weenies
19. They simply don’t believe you that the biggest actors and actresses in India are unheard of in the UK outside the Indian community
20. Ditto for the films
21. Cricket actually starts to make some sense!
22. Rice and curry for breakfast isn’t in the least bit unusual
23. It takes 4 guards with whistles to help you reverse out of a parking space
24. It hasn’t rained for 4.6 billion years, but when it does, mother nature attempts to dump the entire Indian ocean in just 2 hours
25. You see another white person in the pub and they suddenly become your best friend
26. Every Indian that you meet in the pub is in the film industry
27. Any Indian reading this light hearted and tongue in cheek article is offended and angry that I should write such a thing 🙂

Got anything else to add?! Let me know! I’ve promised the guys in the office we’ll do a “You Know You’re in England When…” post if they can come up with enough funny suggestions!

Thought I might write about a typical day for me in India. Could be incredibly boring for some, could provide useful information for others…who knows?!

My day usually starts around 9:30 – 10am when the maid comes in and starts cleaning the apartment. You don’t have hot water on demand, so you have to turn the heater on and wait 15 minutes or so before it’s hot enough to have a shower.

When I was in India last time, breakfast consisted of rice and curry (the sauce is called ‘gravy’ in India). But now I have my own place, I’m embracing traditional Western values by having muesli or cereal with fresh orange juice for breakfast 🙂 I plan to start making tea in the morning too, but I haven’t gotten around to buying a kettle yet…

I get to work between 11am and 12 noon, getting there either by car if Aravind stayed over or tuk-tuk if I’m on my own. Trying to get a tuk-tuk is always an experience. The office is located in an area called Nungumbakkam, but thanks to my wonderful British accent, the tuk-tuk drivers simply can’t understand me when I tell them where I want to go.

Getting a tuk-tuk would cost a local about 70-80 rupees, being white, it’s extremely rare for me to get 80 rupees, it’s usually 80-100. For reference, 100 rupees is about £1.25 or $2.50.

I take lunch around 3pm. Sometimes I bring a packed lunch with cheese sandwiches and an apple, or I’ll go down to the sandwich shop below our office (think: Greggs, if anyone is reading this in the UK). If I buy lunch it’s around 60 rupees (£0.75).

Work generally finishes around 8pm and depending on the plan, I’ll either go out to a nice restaurant for dinner or go home and cook some pasta. Going out to a restaurant at a 4/5 star hotel costs about £15 for three people – not too bad!

If I have to make my own way home then the fun and games start all over again with the tuk-tuk drivers. I live in an area called Mandavelli, but once again, I say this word and a look of confused incohesion crosses the drivers face. It’s always an adventure to find out where you’ll wind up at the end of the journey…

…Since I live near Mandavelli station I use that as a local landmark when explaining where I want to get to, but it’s still incredible how many drivers have no idea where it is. This evening for example, I was taken to Mandavelli bus station.

I’ve also just discovered that apparently the way I pronounce ‘Mandavelli’, it sounds like I’m saying ‘head hurting’ in Tamil. That caused a lot of amusement in the office…grrr.

Anyhow, back to dinner and food…

Pasta is rediculously cheap, this evening I went and bought 2 packets of pasta, 2L bottle of coke, some milk and some juice and it came to 110 rupees – about £1.30.

Since they also have Pizza Hut and Dominos Pizza here, we’ll occasionally order a pizza, this is a bit more expensive, costing around £4.50 ($9.00) for a medium pizza, 4 slices garlic bread and a bottle of Pepsi. The pizza’s are all made from the same ingredients, so they taste exactly the same over here as they do in England (surprise?!).

In the evenings I’ll kick back and watch TV, I’ve got a nice 32″ widescreen flatscreen TV mounted on the wall with cinema surround sound – it’s all good 😀

Umm, so there you have it, a short ‘day in the life of’ someone living in Chennai. Not all that exciting really, except maybe second guessing where you’ll end up when you climb in to a tuk-tuk!

I had my first proper experience of being mobbed by Indian children the other day! I’m used to the staring you get as a white person living in Chennai – in a city of over 6 million people I would be surprised if there were more than 1,000 Westerners living here. With those kind of percentages, if you have white skin, people will stare – not even in a subtle way, but full on staring as they watch you go by.

The staring doesn’t bother me at all – my ego even gets carried away to think that I might be the first white person they’ve seen 🙂 – but very unlikely in Chennai. The staring isn’t done in a rude or offensive way, and there’s certainly nothing aggressive about it, it’s just curiosity to see this odd person with white skin.

Anywho, the other day I had just popped down the road to the supermarket (think small shop that sells a variety of different products – they are still very much in to the “one shop, one product type” over here, fruit from the fruit store, vegetables from the vegetable store, bread from the bread store etc.) and as I came back with a weeks worth of shopping in each hand, I passed what could politely be described as a slum.

A group of scrawny looking kids wearing no shoes (did I really have to say that?!) were playing in an old car wreck when they saw me and then ran over shouting in Tamil. Naturally I didn’t have a clue what they were saying and then one of them pulled out a Motorola Razr phone (no shoes, but they have the latest cell phones?!) and they all crowded round to get their picture taken with me.

It was pretty surreal as I stood there with shopping bags, posing for photos with the kids, grinning like a fool and desperately working out how I was going to get out of the situation. Umm, but I did get out of it eventually.

I was so close to claiming my first Indian road kill today when I opened the car door and a guy on a motorbike slammed in to it.

As part of the crazy ‘no rules’ driving style in Chennai, when Aravind stopped the car, I opened the passenger door (on the pavement side – not in to the traffic) and some guy on a motorbike decided that was going to try and ride up the side…well, until he came to an abrupt stop from the car door.

The gap was probably only just big enough for him to get his bike through, but that’s usually enough of a gap to make them do it.

Unfortunately, although I nearly killed, or seriously injured him, I just haven’t got any sympathy because of his stupidity (does that make me a bad person?!).

I’ve decided to write some tips about catching a tuk-tuk (known as an auto or an auto-rick to the local population) when in Chennai – they probably apply to most asian cities aswell though.

So here goes…

1. All Tuk-Tuk Drivers Wear Face Masks and Black & White Stripy Tops

Or in other words, they’ll rob you blind given half a chance. It’s nothing personal, but if you have white skin, you can expect the driver to add anywhere between a 20% to 150% premium on the price they would charge a local.

Take for example my journey to work. When I was with my friend Aravind, he would negotiate a price of 70-80 Rupees (about $2). The first time I got a tuk-tuk by myself, they asked for 150 Rupees – nearly twice the price because of my skin colour.

2. Make Sure You Know How Much A Journey Will Cost Before You Go

If at all possible, ask a local how much the tuk-tuk journey should cost before you make it. This will give you a better position when it comes to bargaining. Using the example above, I now bargain my way to the right price as you should too.

3. Walk Away

If the tuk-tuk driver won’t budge from his high rates, then start walking away and look like you’re trying to get another tuk-tuk. Many times the driver will call you back and agree to your prices.

I’m amazed at how well this tip works. Although I do have fears that they will all colude against the ‘stupid foreigner’ and none of them will offer a good price.

4. Don’t Be Concerned If You Stop At A Petrol Station

Something I learned quite early on is that a stop via a petrol station is not unusual as you try to get to your destination. Nor is asking for the money to pay for the petrol before you’ve got to your destination.

This has happened a couple of times to me – although I’m not sure if it’s normal (or indeed acceptable) for them to ask for your money to pay for the petrol.

5. Where Ever You Want To Go, The Tuk-Tuk Driver Has Never Heard of It

I’m not sure if this is something against foreigners, but it seems when I get a tuk-tuk with my Indian friends there is no problem getting to where you want to get to. When I try and get a tuk-tuk, the driver gets lost, has no idea where the place is or goes some where completely different.

I’ve tried local landmarks, maps, everything. Only this evening I got a tuk-tuk back home and despite showing the driver a map printed out from Google Maps, we still had to pull over while the guy asked for directions.

Edit 04/2016: This blog post was written in February 2007 in the first couple of months when I had arrived in Chennai. Re-reading the paragraph above makes me cringe to think that I tried showing an auto-driver a map to show where I wanted to go 🙁

These are just some of the tips I have when you are living in Chennai or working in Chennai.

Mosquito Bite Count: 2

I’m getting more and more bugged as the weeks have gone by about Westerners in India. For some strange, unknown reason, they are all insisting on immersing themselves into what they believe the culture of India is by wearing traditional Indian clothes.

By that, I mean the guys wear a kind of wrap-around fabric – like a sarong – and a long sleeved garment that comes down to around your knees and sandels to top it off. The women wear sari’s (badly) or baggy trousers with the same long sleeved garment. Rat tail hair also features prominently.

The thing that bugs me the most is that, yes, at one point these were traditional Indian clothes, but now you are more likely to see (particularly amongst the growing middle-classes) Indians wearing jeans or trousers with a t-shirt or shirt. So if India’s dressing style is changing with the times, why do the Westerners in India insist on wearing old fashioned clothes?!

I know it’s a small and irrational thing to get bugged about, but hey, it bugs me. I wonder if the locals find it offensive or if they just smile in an understanding way and think how odd foreigners must be.

There are many other things that bug me about how Westerners act in India, but if I air them all, I’m in danger of turning this in to an anti-west blog!